“Dialogue – possible between leader and follower?” - Ashridge

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studies into leadership. I wonder also - is it ever possible to make leadership sound ‘unheroic’ when the phrase leader and leadership features in the article? I concur with Cunliffe and Eriksen’s work in their proposition that what is needed in the field of relational leadership “is a way of ‘theorizing’ and ‘doing’ leadership differently, not in terms of applying models or recipes, but as embedded in the everyday interactions and conversations – the relational practices – of leaders” (2011:1428). This in turn implies work should focus in on leading-in-the- moment in all its mundaneness and complexity. Although Cunliffe and Eriksen get closer to such leading in the moment through their method, I would argue that the ethnographic approach still works in a somewhat detached manner. I doubt whether the very real and incredibly influential processes of power and status and in-the-moment assumptions and judgements made of others are really explored through this method and I will refer to this again when I introduce my research methodology below. Before I do this however, there is just one other literature area I would like to mention and that is the work that brings Buber’s work to the leadership domain. In some cases this work acknowledges the effect that power has on encountering dialogue in a leadership context and as such adds an important element to the relational leadership domain. d. Literature relating Buber’s work to leadership I have only been able to locate one peer reviewed paper, by Ashman and Lawler (2008), that directly addresses how Buber’s work might apply to the leader- follower context, posing the question “whether it is possible for [I-Thou] dialogue to occur between leader and follower” (263). As it is such a fundamental source in this literature review it is worth pausing to consider it in more detail. Although the majority of the paper relates to Buber’s ideas and their application to leadership, this is not its stated main purpose. The authors’ primary aim is rather broader; “to introduce and explain a number of important existential philosophers and concepts that we believe can contribute to a critical approach 18
to leadership theory” (2008:253). Their emphasis is to build a claim relating to the important role the existentialist perspective can play in understanding communication and to argue that rather than communication being regarded as ‘part’ of leadership, leadership “might be considered as an aspect or subset of communication” (253). Because their aim is therefore wider than just application of Buber’s work, it is unsurprising that his concepts, although forming a significant proportion of the paper, are not explored very extensively. Some claims such as the appropriateness of examining the therapeutic relationship as analogous to the leader-follower relationship are not accompanied by strong warrants. Notwithstanding this, in their discussion they highlight the following points of interest: • Leader-follower relations are, they claim, largely based on I-It experiences rather than I-Thou encounters due to the traditional superior-inferior, active-passive assumption upon which they are based • The therapeutic relationship can be seen as analogous to the leader- follower relationship. Going on Buber’s famous discussion with the American psychotherapist Carl Rogers (Anderson and Cissna, 1997), the authors believe Buber may have thought I-Thou dialogue was impossible in the leader-follower relationship. This they claim is mainly due to the lack of mutuality and reciprocal acceptance in a relationship characterised by differing power, status and purposes and which, due to its instrumental nature, focuses on technical dialogue • The challenge to leadership researchers is “to search for incidents where such acceptance is manifest and then to look for the consequences”, (Ashman and Lawler, 2008:264). They add enticingly “just one occurrence of the sort of leader / follower acceptance Buber describes will enlighten us as to the possibilities of genuine dialogue between leader and follower” (2008:264). The research questions I am currently exploring directly address Ashman and Lawler’s clear challenge. Five further peer reviewed papers, although focused on different purposes, make at least some mention of the implications of Buber’s work on leadership; they 19
Page 1 and 2: “Dialogue - possible between lead
Page 3 and 4: 2. Background It is difficult for m
Page 5 and 6: 3. Literature Review a. Dialogue Th
Page 7 and 8: Figure 1: the historical developmen
Page 9 and 10: Both sets of authors have in common
Page 11 and 12: academic work linking the two areas
Page 13 and 14: accessible to a pragmatic individua
Page 15 and 16: and Uhl-Bien, 1995) and charismatic
Page 17: many of their propositions are cert
Page 21 and 22: i. Inhibitions to leader-follower d
Page 23 and 24: can easily grow into a feeling that
Page 25 and 26: Research questions, methodology and
Page 27 and 28: A methodology which has grown in us
Page 29 and 30: My experiences of co-operative inqu
Page 31 and 32: • The very ambiguous and uncertai
Page 33 and 34: • As the above points indicate, i
Page 35 and 36: Where next? The process of co-opera
Page 37 and 38: References Anderson, R., Baxter, L.
Page 39 and 40: Habermas, J. (1984), The theory of
Page 41: Stewart, J. and Zediker, K. (2000),

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